SCENE III

In the offices of the Festival Society or local community centre. All is a hub of activity. There are people at desks typing and on phones. People are photocopying leaflets / posters. In the background, a group of actors, scripts in hand, appear to be rehearsing a scene from a play, reading lines, discussing etc. In the foreground FA is dictating a text to someone, and occasionally barking orders at the group of actors.

FA [turning away from actors, dictating to typist]: …are ye getting this? ‘We support the miners, not the scabs. We may not have the huge resources of that bloated millionaire owner of The Daily Record, Robert Maxwell, but we have a more important ingredient than money. Unlike the lies and half-truths of The Record, we publish fact not fantasy…[shouting back to the actors] Where the fuck is Connolly? Alex, yer meant to be a prisoner, no staying in the fuckin Hilton…[returning to dictation] except of course in the instance of Fido, our poor dog, who is allowed to romance a little in the grey puddles of Garthamlock. As we have said before, Garthamlock is a working class district. Few of us have Rolls-Royces or villas in the Riviera…[shouting at actors] I’m watchin ye Margaret! [continues dictation] and accordingly we support the miners and their wives and families in their struggle to keep the pits open. Already the East End of , including this district, has collected £11,000 for the miners and we will continue to send money and food parcels to these… [interrupted]

Boy runs in: [sweating, out of breath] Freddy, Freddy, gonnae let us use the photocopier for these leaflets?

FA: …to these brave people while the strike lasts…’[Turning to boy] Whit?

Boy: The photocopier. I need to get these leaflets done otherwise I’m getting ma arse booted.

FA: [shouts back to actors] For the love of Christ, where is Connolly? The Rising was difficult enough with him along for the ride…[turning back to boy, as though forgotten question already] Whit do ye want?

Boy: The copier…

FA: Take it, take it…

One of the people using the copier has been listening nervously to the conversation…

Body B: Freddy, we’re not supposed to be copying political materials in here…

FA [annoyed]: Politics? [Grabs leaflet out of boy’s hand, starts reading as if to himself] “The DHSS has lined up with MacGregor against us….We are selling our belongings to buy food…But we must carry on and win this fight or there will be no end to our hardship…” Sounds mer like poetry to me. On ye go son.

[Boy pushes past office body and starts copying]

[Freddy turns back to actors, looking exasperated, as they continue to try and play the scene.]

FA: Right! That’s it! Son, yer oan!

[FA grabs boy by the collar away from photocopier, shoves a script into his hand and onto what is now more like a stage, the office has been transformed into a prison and Act II, Scene IV of Krassivy is played, with Agnes visiting John MacLean in Peterhead Gaol. Boy plays MacLean. The others stand around, arms folded, watching the scene]

Agnes: ...Last week I caught this crank, a spinster in , outside our door. She just dropped a note. ‘My three sons are dead in Flanders and all because of John MacLean. If I had my way I’d put him in the rack. I’d tear his eyeballs out.’ Last week they took the poor daft creature to Gartnavel and kept her in. My God but it’s hard, John. A hard, hard struggle. A world of lies and slander. Even them that go to Kirk and dream of heaven. What kind of heaven? To crown their evil they want a halo.

John: [nervous at first] My poor fond lass. Nine years ago I took her in from Hawick’s green and lovely fields, its gentle murmuring brooks and hawthorns wild. I took her into this, the sordid tenements, this dirty wretched prison, this brutal bitter struggle. I lost my steady job. I could have been a well-paid Labour hack official or MP.

Agnes: When you come out of here, John, is there…is there any other way of managing? I don’t want…I don’t want to see my husband crucified. I don’t want it John…

John: [growing into it] Listen, Nan…every night in this wee cell, I see upon the white washed ceiling, I see the crucified of Europe…This cell becomes a battlefield…There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to save the working class from the dreadful consequence of their masters’ greed. I can’t escape my mission, Nan. See how the poor, courageous people of Glasgow have defied the bosses. It gives me hope. It gives me hope…and, listen, …

[lights start to fade up slowly, undercutting him and the hope in his voice]

…I’ve had news from Russia…the most brilliant Marxist in Europe has crossed the German frontier and is now leading the Russian workers and peasants against the Czar and the landlords…[Lights up full, people start to drift away, walk off, return to the photocopying etc.] I’ll tell you, Nan,….I don’t know how long it will take the West, but the East is going Red [Nan walks away, boy now talking almost to himself]…a beautiful red like the great sunset of Capitalism, and the red dawn of Freedom.

[Boy is left standing himself, alone in the middle of the room, looking down at the script, pondering the hope and meaning and unfulfillment of MacLean’s words and what they might mean for him today. Looks around and sees people have lost interest, continuing their work. He then goes and stands in the queue for the copier.]

FA: [Looks at Boy shaking his head and then starts another dictation to typist] ‘A Glasgow person searching even today for a real history of his or her city is almost in the same bewildered state as a foster-child looking for its real parents…It is so well concealed…

[Lights out]

SCENE END

Maybe through projections or boards or handouts, the audience should be aware that the words are all based on real materials connected to Easterhouse, i.e. Easterhouse production of Krassivy, the Garthamlock News, a leaflet from the Miners Support Group, and FA’s essay ‘The Real Culture of Glasgow’. Story of going into Easterhouse Festival Society to copy miners’ strike leaflets and being pulled into a play by FA was related to me by Pat McDonagh of .